Thursday, July 27, 2006

Cheers To The Honey Badger

You've gotta love a little animal that, without so much as an opposable thumb, makes dinner out of some of the world's most dangerous snakes. According to a two-year-old story in National Geographic, he'll chase a cobra up a tree or square off eye-to-eye with a puff adder--and come out the victor:

One night we saw a young male collapse. He'd been struck in the face by a puff adder just before he bit its head off. We expected that he would die. But after two hours he woke up, groggily finished his meal,and later trotted off into the sunrise. We witnessed other encounters in which honey badgers appeared resistant to even the most potent venoms, though we don't yet understand the physiology that protects them.